The week’s top stories (week ending 4/12/18)
Every week, AUSVEG rounds up the top stories on issues affecting the Australian vegetable industry. Here are this week’s most important news items:
Australian industry:
- Farm work for welfare trial labelled a failure, demands for agriculture visa stepped up (Marty McCarthy, ABC Rural)
- Noncompliance exposed in Harvest Trail program (Lucy Knight, The Weekly Times)
- Growcom serious about stopping worker exploitation (David Thomson, Growcom/Queensland Country Life)
- Farmers, waste industry in limbo following suspension of NSW rubbish re-use scheme (Gavin Coote and Donal Sheil, ABC Illawarra)
- PM’s ‘quick and dirty’ drought policy fix (Mike Foley, North Queensland Register)
- Labor’s energy policy welcomed but farmers remain cautious (Lucy Knight, The Weekly Times)
- SA Liberal MPs cross the floor to oppose controversial mining bill (Tom Fedorowytsch, Eugene Boisvert and Cassandra Hough, ABC News)
- Israel ag research and development a shining light (Gregor Heard, Good Fruit & Vegetables)
- Microgreens provide budding businesses with fast-turnaround crops and ready market of foodies (Michael Cavanagh, NSW Country Hour)
- Salad leaf demand drives growth for big Tasmanian producer (Tony Briscoe, Tasmanian Country Hour)
- Amazon undercuts Woolworths and Coles on food and grocery prices (Sue Mitchell, Australian Financial Review)
- Victorian Government’s Ministry announced (The Weekly Times)
- MV Triumph returned to China after pest found on board (The Weekly Times)
- Outback locals call for Senate inquiry into Telstra services following 11-day landline phone outage (Gary-Jon Lysaght, ABC News)
- Mandatory agriculture classes at NSW public schools raises concerns about city facilities (Sophie Trigger, ABC News)
- WA’s ‘forgotten’ farmers face their toughest season amid fire, frost and record dry (Jon Daly and Tara de Landgrafft, ABC News)
- Concerns raised about horticultural growth in the Sunraysia region (Andrew Miller, Good Fruit & Vegetables)
- NAB calendar features top horticulture growers (Good Fruit & Vegetables)
- OneHarvest develops Love Potatoes (Matthew Jones, Produce Plus)
International news:
- Global: The robots are coming, but will they take over? (HortiDaily)
- Global: Global potato promotion campaign launched in Europe (Lukie Pieterse, Potato News Today)
- Japan: Vegetable factories sprout back to life in Japan (Tadanori Yoshida, Takuya Imai and Nana Shibata, Nikkei Asian Review)
- UK: Brussels sprouts officially more popular than pigs-in-blankets at Christmas (Francesca Specter, Yahoo! Lifestyle)
- USA: Do you want to sell the freshest, most flavorful and fragrant cut basil? (David Kuack, Hort Americas)
This post appeared in the AUSVEG Weekly Update published 4 December 2018. Subscribe to the Update using our online form to receive the latest industry news in your inbox every week!